The Knee-jerk Response

Brit Hume is the most undermentioned newsman on all television, even if he's just on cable. Tonight his "all stars" included Bill Kristol, Jeff Birnbaum and Juan Williams. What I found interesting was the alarm of the latter two at the opinion of the former that there is unlikely to be any "peace conference" involving Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. It was as if he had demanded an end to the First Amendment. After watching that with Tivo, I switched into the middle of a Newshour interview with Tom Friedman, who was moved with compassion and concern that we are misunderstood by young Muslims throughout the world. Now Friedman is no fool. He knows that the problem lies with the Islamic states themselves and the anti-West propaganda they allow to foul their airwaves, and has said so frequently and eloquently, hence his Pulitzer prize this year, but he just can't admit that there may be no way to change this through peaceful means. There is an unstated presumption among the moderate and leftist commentariat that THERE MUST BE A PEACE PROCESS, even if the Palestinians have no leader with whom to negotiate. Arafat is not a leader. He's a puppet of the terrorists. If he made peace and achieved a Palestinian state, he wouldn't know what to do next. He has achieved all of his success by playing a double game, claiming to be a revolutionary leader in public, while undermining any hope of stability and peace in private. We know this, as well as we know anything, yet we can't give up the security blanket of the PEACE PROCESS.

This has never been so clearly displayed as this evening. The Islamic world seems enthralled to the sick paranoia of its own media and the monomania of its militant dictators. Yet we think that we can change them by repeating the same rituals that have taught them how to pacify us in the past while they pursue the same aims they always have, the destruction of Israel. It's neurotic and obsessive, but our intelligentsia and State Department can't help themselves. Nothing to them is worse than a failure of the peace process. They know the story of Neville Chamberlain, but they can't see how it applies today. And, sadly, Colin Powell seems to have caught the same fever.